4 ms·

If in order to avoid a healthcare treatment, you have to avoid drinking or bathing or cooking with the public water supply, and also avoid most restaurant food,

If in order to avoid a healthcare treatment, you have to avoid drinking or bathing or cooking with the public water supply, and also avoid most restaurant food, do you still have the right of informed consent to that treatment?

wobblyasp 2y ago
So do you avoid going outside to reduce exposure to environmental pollutants? Water fluoridation is a net-benefit to society.
- delichon 2y ago
  I don't think informed consent is violated by removing a pollutant. But adding a substance as a healthcare treatment denies informed consent as an individual right, and turns it into a majority right. I'd hate for that to happen to other civil rights.
  - doug_life 2y ago
    Should we also stop adding iodide to salt or fortifying white bread? I see your point, but society has benefited as a whole by forcing some of these substances onto populations. I think it's fairly evident that many humans in the US are either unable or unwilling to really care about their health.
    - barbazoo 2y ago
      It's also extreme individualism we've all been indoctrinated with and which is turned up to 11 in the US.
    - perrygeo 2y ago
      Bad analogy. Fortified food provide nutrients to supplement what you get from other foods. One can simply choose to buy white bread that's fortified, or whole foods that have those nutrients naturally. You can't avoid water for too long though. Ingesting whatever is in the water supply is mandatory. I can't avoid flouride in my water any more than I can avoid Nitrogen when I breathe. I have no choice in the matter. It's the lack of choice that many object to, not the health effects of flouride per se. Personally, if given the choice, I'd probably still take flouride. Having it in the water is convenient. Mandatory, but convenient.
      - benlivengood 2y ago
        Folks who don't want to drink flouride can use a reverse osmosis filter or drill a well. You could also buy oxygen generators to avoid breathing as much nitrogen, but that's probably not a great idea in the long run.
  - roguecoder 2y ago
    But uninformed consent to having you remove a necessary mineral from the water supply is fine? If you are worried, you can get a gravity filter and take it out yourself.
- koolba 2y ago
  > Water fluoridation is a net-benefit to society. Banning more than one daily triple cheese burger would be net benefit to society as well. Likely more than we’re getting on dental cost savings. I doubt most would be okay with that though.
  - roguecoder 2y ago
    If you have strong evidence for your proposal, I haven't come across it in my literature reviews. The only food I am aware of that has strong evidence that it contributes to poor health outcomes is sugary sodas. (The only other nutritional thing that consistently shows a negative impact on BMI is dieting: for everything else, populations are too heterogeneous for effects to be consistent. There are people whose combination of genetics + lifestyle make two or more triple cheese burgers a day a perfectly healthy diet.) Outright bans and limitations on size of soda cups were both struck down by the courts, but soda taxes have been an effective public health intervention that reduce consumption and improve health outcomes: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1126569/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/... And they do get widespread support among technocrats.
bondarchuk 2y ago
Informed consent for unnecessary medical treatment is just not a thing in the US. See also: infant circumcision.
- zdragnar 2y ago
  That happens at the discretion of the parents, who are legal guardians and thus responsible for making informed decisions.
  - baby_mutilators 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - baby_mutilators 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - baby_mutilators 2y ago
    [flagged]
ZiiS 2y ago
If in order to gain support for a political position, you have to publish fraudulent science; is the political position tenable?
gshulegaard 2y ago
You could always move to a country which doesn't fluoridate their water supply. But I am struggling to see how this has anything to do with a white paper highlighting and examining flaws in another white paper.
- o_1 2y ago
  i think the dissent in this thread is unqualified. Society is completely over "net-benefit" solutions. Stop perscribing 20th century one size fits all solutions. How about free flouride tablets instead of dosing everyone. Then saying "we need public policy to govern insurance rates". If this arugment saw its maxima, it would be manditory euthansia after 65. Certainly would really drop insurance rates. Btw genetics are a massive factor in oral hygine requirements, probably something your not considering. Should everyone wear the same brand/make of shoes?
  - roguecoder 2y ago
    Having to do work is different than getting adequate vitamins and minerals (which is all fluoride is) passively. It's no different than iodine in salt or vitamins B12, C and folic acid in cereal or vitamin D in milk. We no longer go out and find the magic rock that we lick to ensure a good harvest or drink from the special stream that cures illnesses: we know what the human body needs to be able to do things like "grow teeth" and "not develop scurvy". Why would we go back to making people have to do a bunch of work to get access to basic nutrition? Because some weirdos want to take us back to a time when the average life expectancy in the United States was 40 years old?
  - gshulegaard 2y ago
    The only point I put forth is that public fluoridation of water supplies doesn't infringe absolutely on an individual's right to informed consent to treatment since there is at least 1 method (moving) available that an individual can utilize to opt out. Others have pointed out that there may even be additional options available such as de-fluoridating yourself. Did you have something on topic to contribute? Or did you just want a soap box to voice your own opinions and I just happen to be collateral damage because you thought casting oblique aspersions about my qualifications would make you sound intelligent?
creaturemachine 2y ago
Are you aware that fluoride is a natural mineral in all sources of water? People were found to have better teeth in areas with higher natural concentrations of the stuff. It's like yelling at the sun for administering vitamin D.

wobblyasp 2y ago

So do you avoid going outside to reduce exposure to environmental pollutants? Water fluoridation is a net-benefit to society.

delichon 2y ago
I don't think informed consent is violated by removing a pollutant. But adding a substance as a healthcare treatment denies informed consent as an individual right, and turns it into a majority right. I'd hate for that to happen to other civil rights.
- doug_life 2y ago
  Should we also stop adding iodide to salt or fortifying white bread? I see your point, but society has benefited as a whole by forcing some of these substances onto populations. I think it's fairly evident that many humans in the US are either unable or unwilling to really care about their health.
  - barbazoo 2y ago
    It's also extreme individualism we've all been indoctrinated with and which is turned up to 11 in the US.
  - perrygeo 2y ago
    Bad analogy. Fortified food provide nutrients to supplement what you get from other foods. One can simply choose to buy white bread that's fortified, or whole foods that have those nutrients naturally. You can't avoid water for too long though. Ingesting whatever is in the water supply is mandatory. I can't avoid flouride in my water any more than I can avoid Nitrogen when I breathe. I have no choice in the matter. It's the lack of choice that many object to, not the health effects of flouride per se. Personally, if given the choice, I'd probably still take flouride. Having it in the water is convenient. Mandatory, but convenient.
    - benlivengood 2y ago
      Folks who don't want to drink flouride can use a reverse osmosis filter or drill a well. You could also buy oxygen generators to avoid breathing as much nitrogen, but that's probably not a great idea in the long run.
- roguecoder 2y ago
  But uninformed consent to having you remove a necessary mineral from the water supply is fine? If you are worried, you can get a gravity filter and take it out yourself.
koolba 2y ago
> Water fluoridation is a net-benefit to society. Banning more than one daily triple cheese burger would be net benefit to society as well. Likely more than we’re getting on dental cost savings. I doubt most would be okay with that though.
- roguecoder 2y ago
  If you have strong evidence for your proposal, I haven't come across it in my literature reviews. The only food I am aware of that has strong evidence that it contributes to poor health outcomes is sugary sodas. (The only other nutritional thing that consistently shows a negative impact on BMI is dieting: for everything else, populations are too heterogeneous for effects to be consistent. There are people whose combination of genetics + lifestyle make two or more triple cheese burgers a day a perfectly healthy diet.) Outright bans and limitations on size of soda cups were both struck down by the courts, but soda taxes have been an effective public health intervention that reduce consumption and improve health outcomes: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1126569/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/... And they do get widespread support among technocrats.

bondarchuk 2y ago

Informed consent for unnecessary medical treatment is just not a thing in the US. See also: infant circumcision.

zdragnar 2y ago
That happens at the discretion of the parents, who are legal guardians and thus responsible for making informed decisions.
- baby_mutilators 2y ago
  [flagged]
- baby_mutilators 2y ago
  [flagged]
- baby_mutilators 2y ago
  [flagged]

ZiiS 2y ago

If in order to gain support for a political position, you have to publish fraudulent science; is the political position tenable?

gshulegaard 2y ago

You could always move to a country which doesn't fluoridate their water supply. But I am struggling to see how this has anything to do with a white paper highlighting and examining flaws in another white paper.

o_1 2y ago
i think the dissent in this thread is unqualified. Society is completely over "net-benefit" solutions. Stop perscribing 20th century one size fits all solutions. How about free flouride tablets instead of dosing everyone. Then saying "we need public policy to govern insurance rates". If this arugment saw its maxima, it would be manditory euthansia after 65. Certainly would really drop insurance rates. Btw genetics are a massive factor in oral hygine requirements, probably something your not considering. Should everyone wear the same brand/make of shoes?
- roguecoder 2y ago
  Having to do work is different than getting adequate vitamins and minerals (which is all fluoride is) passively. It's no different than iodine in salt or vitamins B12, C and folic acid in cereal or vitamin D in milk. We no longer go out and find the magic rock that we lick to ensure a good harvest or drink from the special stream that cures illnesses: we know what the human body needs to be able to do things like "grow teeth" and "not develop scurvy". Why would we go back to making people have to do a bunch of work to get access to basic nutrition? Because some weirdos want to take us back to a time when the average life expectancy in the United States was 40 years old?
- gshulegaard 2y ago
  The only point I put forth is that public fluoridation of water supplies doesn't infringe absolutely on an individual's right to informed consent to treatment since there is at least 1 method (moving) available that an individual can utilize to opt out. Others have pointed out that there may even be additional options available such as de-fluoridating yourself. Did you have something on topic to contribute? Or did you just want a soap box to voice your own opinions and I just happen to be collateral damage because you thought casting oblique aspersions about my qualifications would make you sound intelligent?

creaturemachine 2y ago

Are you aware that fluoride is a natural mineral in all sources of water? People were found to have better teeth in areas with higher natural concentrations of the stuff. It's like yelling at the sun for administering vitamin D.